I've got a NEC 2510A DVD burner with firmware 2.15 on it. This drive is used to burn audio cd's and data DVD's for archival purposes only. Unfortunately my success rate with using DVD as a backup media is abysmal. My only guess is that I'm using media that doesn't work well with my drive.

Anyway...I'm really looking to understand burning a little better. I would like to know how to check compatibility, check media, verify backups and such so that I can be confident in my optical media usage.

There are alot of media that your drive will work well with, I'll suggest two, Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden (TY).

You can visit NEC's website for a full compatability list, and I'm sure users will post here as well what their favorite medias for this drive are. You have a good drive, now all you have to do is get some good media!